1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to musical education and more specifically to a musical notation system that greatly simplifies the process of mastering any musical instrument. The examples presented here focus on the guitar but can be applied to many other instruments including the human voice.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The guitar is a remarkably simple instrument for beginners. It doesn't take much effort to learn a few chords and with those under your belt you can play a wide assortment of popular songs. That's good enough for many players, but if you wish to dig deeper the guitar can present bigger and better challenges for a lifetime.
For too many years, however, guitar instruction has been approached haphazardly. You pick up a little here and there, and with years of dedication you might eventually become good. Or like many players you might spin your wheels and fail to progress. Not for a lack of talent or dedication, but rather because you simply don't know what you need to do to get better.
To a large degree music programs such as those offered by GIT (Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood Calif.) have solved the problem by offering excellent courses. And those who have the opportunity should take advantage of them. But not everyone has the time and money to do that.
For those relying on the written instruction available it's a different ball game. Some things are explained in so much detail that the meaning becomes buried; other things are left out entirely. Authors assume knowledge that the particular student may not have. Or they repeat information seen many times before. Students are forced to go from one book to another, hunting for tidbits, because no single source has laid it all out for them—until now.
This invention bridges two patent subclasses. The first subclass is 483.2 musical notation systems. More specifically the use of colorized notation as it pertains to musical instruments. The second subclass is 471SR musical slide rules. We will examine prior art in these two areas separately. However it is the contention of the inventor that by combining both concepts into one idea an unexpected synergism is created that greatly exceeds the sum of the two. And when further enhanced with mnemonic notation, the Scale Degree Board, and other proprietary features and methodologies the new result has many more capabilities than the prior art.
Musical Notation Systems
An aid to note identification is found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,218,603 to Coonce (2001) entitled “Note locator for stringed musical instruments”. While useful, this device requires colored stickers, which must be affixed to the musical instrument. The student is then forced to look constantly to the fretboard while reading the musical notation. Most teachers firmly believe that looking at the fretboard while reading music is an error, thus the device instills poor study habits. The student is further required to learn each separate color used to identify a note without the benefit of mnemonic word associations to aid the memory. These problems are equally inherent to U.S. Pat. No. 5,945,618 to Bennett (1999) wherein the inventor has substituted an actual guitar neck with a colorized fretboard in place of the stickers. This device is further undesirable in that any instrument with such a fretboard will always be perceived as a “crutch” because the colors are not removable as in the “Note Locator” device.
Experiments in Color Notation
Wikipedia.Com reports a related study conducted by Dr. George L. Rogers, the Director of Music Education at the Westfield State College Mass. An experimental group used color-coded method books and supplementary materials in which each different pitch was highlighted with a different color using felt-tip markers. The control group used identical materials, but with the notation uncolored. After the 12 week instructional period subjects in the experimental and control group performed much the same when playing a 26 note melody from memory. However, the students who learned using color-coded notation scored significantly lower when sight-reading plain notation.
Similar results were found when students named the letter names of the notes in two 7-note melodies. A possible theory is that the students in the experimental group memorized the colors instead of the notation. The color-coded materials had a positive affective influence in that 65% of all subjects favored the color-coded notation as easier to play. As a result of these experiments, colored notation does seem to help early music students to learn notation and rhythms more than students with uncolored notation.
In Rogers' 1991 study of color-coded notation, it is clear that students relied more heavily on the colors that were assigned to the notation, rather than on learning the notation. However, as the students were able to easily tell the different notes apart, Rogers theorized, perhaps by using different colors that are not assigned to a note, the experimental students would have been able to read not only the colored notation better but also the uncolored notation. Dr. Rogers did change the second study, in 1996, making the colors arbitrary. While the “obvious disadvantage of memorization” from the 1991 study exists, the overall findings of the study were that colored musical notation is an inexpensive and effective tool when used with young music students. However, there is no indication that Dr. Rogers' ever considered using mnemonics with colorized notation to overcome the “obvious disadvantage of memorization”. Nor that his colored notation ever took the form of a musical slide rule.
Musical Slide Rules
We turn now to musical slide rules. An early but interesting embodiment is presented in U.S. Pat. No. 4,069,737 to Andersson (1978). Here the inventor uses a slide rule device to convert standard musical notation into a format more like tablature. He grasps the idea of using a slide rule for the purpose and even worked out a Major scale pattern of window apertures through which the named letters of the chromatic scale can be viewed as they appear on a second sliding element. And if all a user wanted was to convert notation this would be sufficient. But he repeatedly states that the notes are to be identified by letter only and never considers the use of colors for the purpose. He never intends for standard notation to be readable without the intermittent step of converting to another format. Most importantly he also completely omits any reference to intervallic relationships. And even his apertures fall short of optimal design since he has chosen to use small dotted windows. Dots were rejected during the development of the new invention because they are not as easy to read as the new design. Andersson specifies that the device is to be used for fretted instruments only whereas the new invention works for the human voice and indeed any instrument other than percussion.
Further this prior art has, for whatever reason, proven commercially unsuccessful. The only way someone is likely to find out about it is from a patent search because the device exists nowhere in the market place.
In fact the only musical slide rule to have demonstrated any marketability is U.S. Pat. No. 5,386,757 to Derrick (1995), which does have some online presence although it does not seem to be available in stores. This is unfortunate because some of the old slide rules are useful items even though they lack many of the features and benefits of the new invention.
It is difficult to say if the lack of market penetration has been the result of design limitations, failure of the patent holders to actively pursue sales, or hierarchical resistance to the new ideas. However music students have been crying out for centuries for a simplified means of communication. In fact the vast majority give up in frustration long before they achieve their true potential in the field. Jazz great and founder of the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood Calif., Howard Roberts, once said, “Students often blame themselves for not having enough talent. It's not that they don't have the talent; they just don't know where their fingers are supposed to go.” With the new invention that problem is at long last solved.
Given the fact that it's been more than 30 years since U.S. Pat. No. 4,069,737 was issued one might be inclined to think that it's outdated. But it's actually very typical of even the most recent prior art. And all of the shortfalls mentioned in regards to it are still present in the field. And it's functionally limiting. Using dots instead of squares negatively affects readability and it's functionally limiting. Using letter names instead of colors, and in particular mnemonic colors, is functionally limiting. Omitting intervallic relationships is functionally limiting.
There are of course trade-offs and one must evaluate the full spectrum of options in order to determine the best possible manifestation of embodiments. Within the confines of this document we must narrow our focus. There simply isn't space to consider them all. Therefore the embodiments discussed should not be taken as the final decision on the matter. Here we merely seek an example for demonstration.
But in any event it is quite clear that the prior art does not take full advantage of the potential that is available. After 30 years one might think someone would have figured out what's missing. And from a backwards engineering viewpoint the new ideas may even seem simple. But in all these years no one has thought to do it until now. And after all, the idea is to make the musical education process as easy as possible particularly for young and beginning students.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,386,757 to Derrick (1995) introduces additional inefficient concepts. Colors are used for the sole purpose of indicating which finger should be used to play each note. Thus it actually teaches away from the more efficient use of colors. The device requires a “plurality of color-coded systems” which is not just unnecessary but also squanders a vital opportunity to teach how scales and chords are constructed and how they relate to each other. Further the text specifies that “These coding systems are used to isolate a maximum of five scale patterns for every twelve frets of fingerboard travel”.
The new invention embodiment, as shown, describes up to seven interconnecting scale patterns for every twelve frets of fingerboard travel thus providing for smoother transitions between positions and greater fingerboard knowledge and requires only one overlay. It also provides for five basic overlaying chord fingering structures in each five-fret region of the fret board. A great many chord variations can be derived from each of them.
Many other examples of musical slide rules and, separately, colored musical notation can be found. However without properly combining the two concepts and without providing for the use of mnemonics, intervallic relationships, and additional exclusive features and methodologies that can be used by this variation of the new invention the prior art cannot hope to deliver the same benefits.